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MEXICO CITY: Taco Capital of the World

The starting point: Pretty much every dish Mexican cooks know how to make—from simple seafood to
wild game in a complex mole—can be scooped into a tortilla and eaten out of hand. And those tortillas, though made mostly of corn, can be nearly as wide ranging as the fillings. All of which means that tacos are probably more varied and special that you may have imagined.

Early one day in the beginning of 2024, the Topolo team (who have eaten tacos all over Mexico) devoted a concentrated 12 hours in Mexico City to tracking down 13 off-the-tourist-track taquerias and eating 35 of their specialties. It is from that legendary CDMX taco crawl that this menu has grown.

In Mexico, tacos come in a dozen or so categories, some of which you’ll recognize (tacos de carne asada, perhaps), while others (like tacos de guisados or a la plancha) may be new to you. As you adventure through Mexico City with us, we’ll ensure you get to meet some new friends.

A CHEF’S GUIDE TO PUEBLA

“Puebla can be breathtaking. Slipping past the town’s industrial outskirts, perhaps past some of the congested downtown streets around the market, you easily arrive at the 17th century Capilla del Rosario, the richest expression of gold-leafed Mexican baroque—shimmering, vibrating, an indescribable visual symphony of thousands.

Why introduce a menu of Puebla inspirations with architecture? Because as that baroque chapel was being carved and gold-leafed, Mexico’s famous mole was being invented just blocks away at Santa Rosa Convent. While the blackish-brown sauce may look simple, a single taste reveals it to be as baroquely ornamented as the Capilla del Rosario: a host of dried chiles thickened with nuts and seeds (and bread and tortillas), sweetened with dried and fresh fruit, enriched with tomatoes and tomatillos, gilded with chocolate and a collection of spices from far-off lands. Puebla, one of Mexico’s most deeply rooted Spanish settlements, lives its baroque soul daily in the churches, in the ornamented sweets, in the Talavera pottery, in the moles.”